One Bad Apple

This is the second of three posts concerning Hebrew Creation myths. In the previous post, I showed how the creation myth in Genesis 1 is pagan in origin and clearly polytheistic. It gets more complicated with the second Hebrew creation myth in Genesis 2:4b – 3:24.

For brevity, I won’t repeat the entire second Genesis myth because it’s quite long. However, while I suspect most know the myth’s essentials, I recommend you refresh yourself. A good source is the Bible Gateway, which has multiple translations. 

Whereas Genesis 1 is mainly intact with minor modifications, scholars have determined that Genesis 2, like most Hebrew texts, is an edited narrative resulting from various sources and multiple revisions. Scholars label one identified source for Genesis 2 as “J” for Jawist and another “P” for Priestly. We can even see the remnants of a pre-Abrahamic polytheistic thread found near the end of the myth when God states, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”

The most common portrayal of the forbidden fruit through the years has been the apple.

A central purpose of this myth is to explain human suffering in an imperfect world. The Greeks also have a myth for the same purpose. According to Greek mythology, in the beginning, humanity was completely male. In the myth of Pandora’s Box, Zeus becomes angry with men and plots a scheme to make them suffer. Zeus’s first step in his plan was to create a woman for the men. His next step was to give her a box and tell her not to open it. When curiosity got the best of her, she opened it, and out flew all of the sufferings of humanity. 

In both myths, Divinity creates an item that tempts humanity and brings suffering to humankind. In the Hebrew myth, it was a fruit tree; in the Greek myth, it was a box. Interestingly, in both cases, there’s a patriarchal element; the woman is portrayed as incapable of following directions and plays a central role in causing suffering.  

There is an important thing to understand about the myth of Pandora’s Box. Pandora’s Box was only one example of the crap Zeus was often portrayed as doing. If He wasn’t portrayed as raping someone, he was torturing them. Therefore, in the Pandora’s Box myth, human suffering is understood as being the fault of the gods, not ours.

The Hebrew myth itself really isn't different from the Greek myth. What's different is the Abrahamic interpretation. Remember, in Abrahamic radical monotheism, the One God is not only perfect but is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful. The blame must, therefore, be placed on humans rather than the God of Abraham.

The Abrahamic spin on Genesis 2 blames the victim. God sets humanity up by placing the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden. Then, when the first humans fail, which God knew would happen, rather than placing the blame back on God for setting up the first couple, the story places the blame unfairly upon humanity.

We have been gaslighted by Abrahamic theology for thousands of years. It’s time we say no more by rejecting monotheism and its toxic message.